2 new faces in shuttle squad
- No Jamshedpur player named in junior national outfit

OUR CORRESPONDENT

JBA office at Mohan Ahuja Stadium in Jamshedpur

The Jharkhand Badminton Association (JBA) on Friday named two new faces in its eight-member squad that will take part in the Junior National Championship scheduled to be held in Jaipur, Rajasthan, from February 7 to 12.

The selectors, who gave maiden call-ups to Ranchi’s Lalit Mohan and Nikita Singh, interestingly, have not named any Jamshedpur player in the outfit. Both Lalit and Nikita were included in the U-17 age category.

Seven-time senior state champion Uma Rani Palit will accompany the outfit as its coach, whereas Ajit Kumar Rana was named as the manager for the tour.

Announcing the squad in Jamshedpur on Friday, JBA secretary K. Prabhakar Rao said that both Lalit and Nikita had shown immense promise during a three-day selection trial held in Hazaribagh from December 28-30.

“We expect the duo to come up good during the nationals. We decided to include them in the squad for a big event as we felt that it would give both lalit and nikita the much needed exposure,” Rao told The Telegraph.

While Manav Poddar of Ranchi and Lohardaga’s Yousuf Ansari will lead the challenge in the u-17 boys’ single and doubles categories, the Ranchi duo of Shabnam Naz and Nikita will represent the state in the girls’ category.

Chaibasa’s Chandrajit Jha on the other hand is expected to team up with Ranchi’s Shafi Akram in the boys’ U-19 category while Ranchi’s Insha will represent the state in the girls’ category of the same event. Nikita will partner Shabnam in the doubles event.

Interestingly, no Jamshedpur player was named in the squad due to, what sources claimed, was a war of attrition between JBA and its affiliated Jamshedpur unit.

Insha and Safi, who are the current state junior and senior champions, are being backed to come good in the event after the state’s poor showing in the Senior National Championship held in Bangalore from January 18-25.

Both the champions, along with Shabnam and Chandrajeet made the state squad for the Bangalore championship, in which the Jharkhand had cut a very sorry figure crashing out in the very first round.

Interestingly, no Jamshedpur player was named in the squad due to, what sources claimed, was a war of attrition between JBA and its affiliated Jamshedpur unit.

Speaking to The Telegraph, Rao, however, rubbished any such claim.

“Only two players from Jamshedpur attended the trails that was held in Hazaribagh. Both did not show much promise, hence we had to keep them out,” Rao said, added that the JBA believed in giving opportunities to all deserving players.